Google to test image advertising
13 May 2004
Google has announced that it is planning to add banners, or image advertisements, to advertisements.
Having previously rejected adverts that included images, Google has now posted a statement on its website describing a new programme that will allow customers to place image, or banner, ads on third-party websites using its AdSense programme.
The posting states that Google will not put image adverts on its own site for the time being, but adds that the company looks "forward to offering more image ad distribution options in the future."
The image ad programme was launched on Wednesday as a beta version.
The company said: "Google image ads are matched to a webpage's content by the same proven targeting technology that drives AdWords text ads. Because of this targeting, image ads are highly pertinent to the interests of a person browsing a particular content site."
Tim Armstrong, Google's vice president of advertising sales, said the decision to use banner ads followed nine months of interviews with web surfers, publishers and advertisers.
Google's advertising programme accounts for around 95 per cent of the company's revenue. The AdWords programme auctions search keywords to the highest bidder and charges customers only when a web surfer clicks on their advertisement.
Google said the new service will offer four layouts of varying sizes: leaderboard, banner, skyscraper and medium rectangle and the image ads will be limited to 50KB in size.
The company will also include a "user bar" along the bottom of its image ads displaying the address of the site, a feedback button to let users send messages about an ad directly to Google, and an "Ad by Google" label.
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